Hangman
by Alien-Ariel
Summary: Jova is one of Varric's liaisons, one of his contacts. But most of them don't get "renamed" by the well-connected dwarf. And none of the other people under his employ are held so close... not that Jova has any idea just how close. VarricXOC
1. Human Fountains

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The human body is full of blood. I mean, fucking full to the brim. Gushing with the stuff. Elves and dwarves too, actually; elves may be thin and dwarves may be short but they're swimming with the stuff, same as us humans. People are just bags of skin made to hold a body full of blood.

And let me just say that the stuff will get everywhere. I didn't quite believe how far that shit can spurt, not until I sunk a dagger into someone for the first time. Geysers. Rivers. Fountains of blood. I've tried to keep my distance from a kill since then. I've always got my knives holstered to my hips, I'm not stupid; but bows are much more my speed.

Arrows can do quite a bit of damage. Don't dare write them off; otherwise I might take advantage and clock you one between the eyes. Not being in the thick of a fight can facilitate some punishingly critical shots.

I breathe out: a sharp little stream of air over my teeth, past my lips. The index and middle fingers of my left hand extend in perfect unison. The bowstring slackens. The wood of my bow relaxes and seems to let out a breath too. A deadly thin splinter soars away, wobbling with the slightest spiral as it arcs toward the target I painted. I hear a scraping of metal on metal as the tip slides between his armor's scales. The piercing of flesh sounds wet and squishy even through all that layered iron. This all happens faster than it seems it should, certainly faster than my target could contest with. He doesn't have time to expel his dying breath or call out to his Maker. But his body compensates for that; blood surges from the wound like a tidal force. I think it makes an unholy amount of noise: all the sound and fury of a soul leaving its vessel. Crimson waters evacuate with a desperate force; maybe that's what the spirit looks like, what it is. It gets all over, even from this distance. I'm soaked. Somehow I always get soaked.

"You're beautiful when you're bloody." Varric Tethras says next to me. We always fight side-by-side, bringing up the rear of the battlefield.

"You're bloody when you're beautiful." I tell him. He gets it. We stow away our weapons.

The Hanged Man. If you're anyone worth knowing in the Underworld, it's your favorite tavern. I throw myself so hard against my usual seat that it complains. If you're anyone worthy of interest, you've got a usual seat. Varric takes the seat against the wall. If you're anyone important, your usual seat is the one overlooking the whole tavern. Varric is by and large the most renowned, interesting, and important man in the professional Underworld; high compliments for one so low to the ground. But I can't help but gush over him, literally over him. I even say he's taller than the average dwarf. He likes that. I know he does. It's harder to hide a smile without the customary braided beard.

"You're such a manly man." I tease him because he's lounging against the wall like some kind of king, surveying his territory; so very handsome and perfectly posed. He's laughing. It's his way; but he sits straight as soon as I mention it. We're the same height when we're here at the table. I tell him he has such gorgeous eyes and to not hide them from me. He likes that too, but he's not about to let me monopolize the teasing in this conversation.

"So exactly how many of those thugs did you know by name?" He's talking about our scuffle in the Lowtown streets with Hawke earlier. He's asking how many I know, or knew rather; I'm a second too slow on a retort.

"Oh, I get it: you must have lost count."

"I'll take that as a compliment to my skills." I'm quicker to reply this time. A smirk comes to my lips when called. Varric holds up his hands.

"I'm not foolish enough to ever do anything _but _compliment you, my dear." He pauses for emphasis, "Have I commented on your ravishing and cruelly distracting beauty yet today?"

"Well, not yet in the form of badly written poetry." I joked. My eyes demanded it though.

"Bah! Only the most soulfully exquisite poetry for you." Varric scoffed, "Isabela has the corner on bad poetry, I think."

I turned momentarily to listen in on the only noble in the tavern tonight; he insists on lavishing her with romantic verses of his own design that manage to be both touchingly heartfelt and nauseatingly graphic vignettes of morbidity. I'd invite her over to the haven of our table if I didn't also believe he would frolic along any path she took. I liked the pirate just fine, but who wanted her plus-one around? Varric wasn't arguing. Smart move. But Varric never makes anything but smart moves, to be sure.

Varric is a powerful friend to count on your side. Plus he's more than easy on the eyes. I like to tell him so. I like that he likes it.


	2. I Have Many Names

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My name is Jova. I hate it about as much as anybody can hate something as inoffensive as a name. No one really calls me Jova unless they're teasing me, or asking to take an arrow to the face and a kick to the balls.

I've had more than my share of nicknames to replace "Jova", and for the most part I've kept that part of me a secret. Of course, I've spent most of my life in an endless chain of gangs; growing up in Darktown doesn't give you that much choice: whoring or scoring. Or, whoring _and _scoring; those people are great to have drinks with, they never run out of stories… And then there are the people that just like killing, but I don't frequent their dens; you can smell the blood from the streets, so they're easy to avoid. Killers are no fun at all, they just like to guffaw and poke each other with the pointy ends of their swords; that always sounded a little too intimate for my tastes…

Granted, I never really ran with _anyone_ very savvy; if I had, I might have had more of them become my neighbors in the Lowtown old quarter. Scoring is profitable, especially if you know how to sneak more than your share away when everyone's blood is still running hot. The excitement of crime and the drinks that come after make people stupid, and that stupidity made me decently wealthy. Well, decently wealthy for being as lowborn as I was.

I've been in a lot of gangs, and I've had a lot of names. I got called Rabbit, Glib, Rose, Sparky, Squirt, and Pea. Also Jenny, Jack, Jewel and Jessie; all by the same guy that had somehow learned my real name and then forgotten it. Once I pretended to be Antivan, accent and all, so I got called Crow. More than one gang simply called me Archer. But the one I liked best was Andraste; you need to see the look on a templar's face when he calls on the power of the Maker's bride to give him strength, and I come out to pelt the guy with arrows. Just once, it's priceless. Of course, no one can rival Varric Tethras in the art of reassigning names.

I met him the conventional way. He's got contacts in every gang in Kirkwall and liaisons to every guild and group worth his time. I started out as just another name under his employ and in his far-flung communications web. I really only became a face to him when he started to see just how many Kirkwall gangs I'd suddenly sprout up in. He called me that for a while: sprout. I'm "young and precious" he replied haphazardly when I tried to press him about my new name. He eventually said to be happy he hadn't "settled on 'weed'."

Happy indeed. Varric Tethras only renames the people he holds closest. How could I not have been though? I had no ideas of loyalty then and would pass along all the secrets possible before getting bored and jumping ship to another gang in another part of town. I was fluid like that, which Varric liked and, above all, valued. I made him very rich. He never said just _how _rich, but he positively smothered me with payment and protection alike. He said I was the perfect infiltrator: young, capable, savvy, and, he always was sure to add, beautiful beyond anyone's dreams. What a tease he was. Still is, apparently; I'm just used to his smooth ways now, years later.

This went on for a while; Varric's protection is quite substantial, so I was able to jump about as I wished. Things only really started taking a turn for the bloody red when Hawke made it her apparent mission in life to take on the whole of Kirkwall's crime problem. She'd shown up in Kirkwall with her family a while before that, actually, but was little more than a slave until a few weeks ago. I guess she was roped into serving with the Red Iron until she and her brother worked off the exorbitant amount of bribe money needed to pay their way into the city. That's the great thing about city-states: corruption runs a lot quicker and a lot deeper than in real countries like Ferelden. I've always lived in the Free Marches, Kirkwall specifically… except for that one time I ran off to the Dalish, but that's a very long story.

More to the point: Hawke and I are distant cousins, for whatever that's worth. To her, it means quite a bit; she lost her father a few years back and her sister Bethany just before fleeing here. She clings to anything familial and I came close enough for her. No blood between us, just marriage ties; and that can be said for most of the incestuous nobility.

In fact, the only blood between Hawke and I is the blood spilled on the battlefield; that's in no short supply at least. People can bond over fighting together, especially with her righteously vicious but counter-intuitively protective nature. She certainly enjoys killing thugs and eliminating Kirkwall's gangs; however, she seems to enjoy it more for the end this slaughter achieved. She's a terribly vengeful peacemaker; she likes to think the end justifies the means. I could respect that, at the very least; she might as well have a cause to validate her rampages.

The information I had gathered over my lifetime of gang affiliations had a potent usefulness to my cousin; I knew where to find secret entrances, how many people we'd have to mow down, what time was best to catch the gang off-guard. So she'd bring me around on these exploits. At first it was a strange conflict of interests: I'd had drinks with these assholes, ducked guardsmen with those assholes, shared a den of villainy with the assholes who ran it all… but damned if they all weren't _assholes_. I got over it pretty fast.

I'd actually reached the point of having helped dispose of nearly half of the numerous gangs I'd once belonged to. I would notch my bow for each one down; by now I had to stop doing so or otherwise risk its structural stability. I enabled Hawke's escapades more than most: like an executioner leading them all to the gallows. One by one. And rather ruthlessly so, I think she'd say.

"I think I have a new name for you, Jova…" I can remember Varric saying to me once as we stood over mounds of bodies soaking the floors of a Hightown estate, "Hangman."

Make that another name, then. Fifteen names, and counting, to separate me from "Jova".


End file.
